(Bolded statements apply to me)
Father went to college
Father finished college
Mother went to college
Mother finished college
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.
Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
Were read children’s books by a parent
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
But I paid for most of them myself, out of my programming job.
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
This is rather generational, and/or my parents were weird (okay, definitely “and”). I had a credit card before my parents did, because I needed it for business travel.
Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs*
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs*
The meme came with the asterisks, I don’t know what they mean yet. Actually half my college costs were paid for as a fringe benefit of my father’s job, but attributing it to my parents seems fair enough.
Went to a private high school
This is bi-modal I think — the working class send a lot of kids to parochial schools, while upper-class send their kids to Phillips Exeter or whatever. Not me, either way.
Went to summer camp
Had a private tutor before you turned 18
Family vacations involved staying at hotels
Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
There was original art in your house when you were a child
Had a phone in your room before you turned 18
Generational, again; having phone extensions was a much bigger deal before the breakup of AT&T.
You and your family lived in a single family house
Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
You had your own room as a child
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
Somewhat generational I think; I don’t recall those as being something that was even talked about in the highschool I was in, and plenty of us went on to first-rate schools, we even had a Rhodes Scholar.
Had your own TV in your room in High School
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
I first flew across the Atlantic when I was 5. The plane had propellers.
Went on a cruise with your family
Went on more than one cruise with your family
No cruises, but both sabbatical years in Europe that I accompanied my parents on, we made at least one of the Atlantic crossings by ship. That was 1958-59 and 1966-67, though, the ship was probably cheaper that first time, and the expensive thing was flying back in a hurry when my mother’s mother died.
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family
Okay, so we knew I was from a privileged background. I’m surprised the meme doesn’t have more about travel, especially international travel, I thought that was one of the clearer dividing lines.
The thing is, my family didn’t have very much money. We were never short of money, that I knew of, certainly it never manifested as having to change plans or very meager Christmases or whatever. (Bear in mind that when I lived at home with my parents was from 1954 to 1977, and most of my remarks cover from when they bought the house my mother still lives in in 1963; it influences what some of these things mean). But we had a modest 1.5-story house, no air-conditioning, got some new furniture once in that period, kept cars 7-17 years and never had more than one, didn’t get a TV until 1962 and then it was an old small used B&W one, didn’t get “new outfits” every year (though as a growing child I certainly got a lot of new clothing), didn’t get a color TV while I lived at home, never had more than one phone extension, replaced the carpet in the living room once (boy did it need it), never had a boat or any other kind of recreational vehicle, never went to restaurants when we were at home, etc. My parents managed the money they had to do the things that were important to them (and saved a lot for retirement as well). Quantitatively (I haven’t been able to find much on average college professor salaries in the 1960s, so I’m going on memory), I believe we had less than union auto workers or many skilled blue-collar people had in terms of raw money; the big difference was how it was spent.
